Timfish

Sadly I have to report the Yellow Tang is dead! And sadder yet, not from natural causes. A family member who was visiting my client decided since everyone would be gone for the weekend it would be best to turn off the AC. Also lost was a several Montipora and Seratopora. Acros survived along with zoas, Xenia and other soft corals.

25-30gal We started do weekly water changes in January to remediate the red hair algae problem. Actually our main reason was to get Kim's tank looking better by the monthly meeting in February which was supposed to be at her house but was rescheduled to Ty's. It would have taken longer but we could have taken a more leasurely approch like we did with Mike's tank with his green hair algae problem, http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/34556-hair-algae-a-case-study/?hl=%2Bhair+%2Balgae%2C+%2Bcase+%2Bstudy I think it's important to point out Kim had a good selection of herbaviores but they were not keeping up. Using water changes and manual removal we have been able to shift the equilibrium in her system so the various nuisance algae are on the wane and her herbavores are able to keep up. This is the same thing that happened with Mikes tank. If Kim want's to back off to 15 - 25% a month now I don't think she's going to see a recurrence of the probelm. With Mike's tank we're now doing roughly 15%-18% every 4 - 6 weeks and his corals and anemones are continuing to grow and thrive.

25-30gal We started do weekly water changes in January to remediate the red hair algae problem. Actually our main reason was to get Kim's tank looking better by the monthly meeting in February which was supposed to be at her house but was rescheduled to Ty's. It would have taken longer but we could have taken a more leasurely approch like we did with Mike's tank with his green hair algae problem, http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/34556-hair-algae-a-case-study/?hl=%2Bhair+%2Balgae%2C+%2Bcase+%2Bstudy I think it's important to point out Kim had a good selection of herbaviores but they were not keeping up. Using water changes and manual removal we have been able to shift the equilibrium in her system so the various nuisance algae are on the wane and her herbavores are able to keep up. This is the same thing that happened with Mikes tank. If Kim want's to back off to 15 - 25% a month now I don't think she's going to see a recurrence of the probelm. With Mike's tank we're now doing roughly 15%-18% every 4 - 6 weeks and his corals and anemones are continuing to grow and thrive.

Kim, we discussed aragamight very briefly but I'm afraid I didn't go into a lot of detail and Ty brings up an important subject. It's essentail aquarists understand the chemistry involved in our reefs and Randy Holmes-Farley does an excellent job of explaining some of it. But it's important to look at the whole picture, to pay attention to what is happening in our tanks, to keep abreast of the science and what is being accomplished by others. I certainly do not question the basic equations Dr. Holmes -Farley talks about. What gave me pause when I first read it many years ago was Tropicorum (the oldest coral farm in the US) had been using Aragamight quite successfully as their sole supplement for several years before his article. Quoting Richard Perrin "We have long believed that the CaribSea product, called Aragamight, is really good and have been adding it to our tanks regularly for some time. We get it from CaribSea in 100-pound bags and add it daily. The advantage is not just the jump in calcium that one would expect, it is a multipurpose additive that has a lot of other components besides calcium."1 A second observation is an apparent assumption the pH in an aquarium is homogeneous and Aragamight would not dissolve. I know from many years experience even though I may test acceptable pH levels in the open water column in my tanks there are certainly micro environments that will be dissolving calcium, this should be obvious to anyone who has grown any stoney corals for any length of time. Any close look at the base of a coral skeleton that has died from lack of light as the colony grows will see dissolution of the skeleton (See the attached photo for closeups of a Birdsnest skeleton dissolving). Since that article was posted there has been some fascinating science supporting the direct ingestion of fine calcium particles by corals. Something not discussed much 12 - 15 years ago but is fairly commonly accepted now is an important source of food for corals is fish poop (earliest reference I can remember is Borneman's 2001 book on aquarium coral husbandry). Research2 done 5 years ago shows a significant percentage of fish poop is calcium and magnesium carbonate crystals. Besides phosphate and nitrogen, corals are also benefiting by direct ingestion of particulate calcium and magnesium carbonate. (This raises some curious questions about the role of bioeroders in our systems providing calcium. ) 1) Coral, June/July 2005, pg 11 & 12 2) http://www.pnas.org/content/108/10/3865

Oh my goodness! How can I keep anything alive with 5 mg/l PO4 and no NO3!? I have to agree with Victoly though, with corals sucking up ammonia straight from the water as well as uric acid and amino acids, both organic forms of nitrogen, and even sucking up nitrates if they have to it's impossible to test what's really happening with the nitrogen cycle in our tanks. And considering phosphate is the limiting factor of a corals ability to use nitrate as a food for it's zooxanthellea and when corals have low internal phosphate they become very sensitive to light and bleach easily I'm curious how robust the corals will be and how the tanks are going to look over time dosing nitrates but keeping PO4 low. I would think it as important to track how much and how often corals are being fed along with water parameters to see how food is helping to compensate for low PO4 levels.

And he's 21 and a half, at least.

First thing I would check is magnesium. If you've been reading Victoly's phosphate thread Ty and I have very different views on phosphate but it would be good to have a benchmark and I prefer Elos Proffesional for low range. I wouldn't bother Richards leather any more than neccessary, Sarcophyton leather corals can look bad for a while and bounce back with surprising speed. What corals besides the chalices are fading or is it just the chalices?

How do I get someone kicked out!!!! :-D

Ty, I think this will answer your question. http://youtu.be/vM8UGKT1npA

Once you get the sump and water running in they could pretend it's a submarine that's sprung a leak.

You post elicits and interesting combination of both amusement and annoyance.

Public aquariums have had specimens live into their 30' and 40's. I would hazard a guess a median age should be around 30. One of the things that we are learning now that more aquarists are keeping systems for decades is it's almost always a mistake to keep more than one specimen of a Zebrasoma species in a system. From what I've seen it almost certainly takes 5 years or more for a tang to mature and in the confines of any but the largest tanks they will become territorial and the most aggressive will, sooner or later, kill off the less dominate fish.

And here's short videos of a Yellow Tang and Purple Tang that were purchased at the same time: 20+ year old Yellow Tang 20+ year old Purple Tang

Kim and I have talked about ventilation and it actually should be pretty easy to get very good air flow. On the Dinning room side there will be a space about 9" x 11" from the end of the tank to the wall delineating the archway to another hallway. Part of this will be for an external overflow (DAS will build a tank with it) and there will be some kind of shallow shelf or something to hide it but there should be ample room for a plenum to vent air. This should also let Kim hide all the wiring for her Kessils but still have realatively easy access should she need to mess with it. On the kitchen side with three cabinet doors just a 1/4" gap around each door would give us 72 sq in for airflow if the doors are 16" x 32". Like Kim pointed out one option will be to build an internal wall where one of the studs are located so the elecrtical would be pretty well protected from splash and humidity of the sump (much like Mike Frame's stand for those of you've who've seen his setup). Kim, the inside picture looking up, is that where the electrical goes into the wall or is that opening between the studs next to the outlet? And what's the inside measurement between the sides? Looking at the pictures it looks like the studs are edge to edge so the inside measuremnt should be 7". I bet we can get some forensics and track down the owner of that boot print too!

Elvis is a sailfin tang, the Z. veliferum version. Didn't think some people couldn't see the video. It's on my youtube account so you can just click on the youtube button to get to it.

Moved Elvis into his retirement home today (I hope I don't have to move him again ). He was purchased in 1994 and was about 4" - 5" long so his estimated age is something like 23 to 25 years old. At the moment he's about 12" long TL.

Are you saying I should read your posts!

Good to see you sponser ARC! Are you going to be at C4 again next year?

I would like to nominate myself for top rat. I stopped using water resistant end caps a long time ago after finding them corroded and melted inside. A standard socket has far less material to melt and it's much easier to inspect the contacts and they are cheaper and easier to replace

Yup. What's the ballast manufacterer? I've seen Workhorse balasts in some fixtures that will drive a wide array of bulbs and in some cases will run a different number of bulbs than the original fixture was set up with. Even a typical ballast for a four pin bulb can usually be used to run a small range of different wattages and may run PCs as well as T5s

I really like having one in a system. They are great algae eaters and they are amusing to watch as they are so clumsey. Of course that's what bother some as they will climb across delicate corals and knock stuff over.

A lot are killed as bycatch in nets and are just discarded. Some are species are severely overfished (a few species to extinction) and some species are quite stable.

Thank You! Carol and Ryan, loved those little quiches! (But Dave Pettet got more than me! ) And thank you Teresa for bringing your wonderful banana nut bread! Good to see everybody there!

What do I have to do to stuff the ballot box to get that reactor!

There's also the loss of the sharks. Removing apex predators from an ecosystem always screws it up by letting herbivores populations get out of balance. (Bio3) The Long Nose Black Tang, Zebrasoma rostrum, isn't collected in Hawai'i, the Black Surgeonfish the report is referring to is Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis what I'm familair with as the Chevron Tang.